


Revenge of the Ice Cubes

by PlotQueen



Series: The Ice Cubes Arc [5]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-10
Updated: 2006-10-10
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:09:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1271029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotQueen/pseuds/PlotQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring Break finally rolls around, and Danny has major plans for Sam. But when his parents force him to go out of town for a campus tour, they’re ruined. Of course, when you’re a hormonal eighteen-year-old with ghost powers, what’s ruined?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revenge of the Ice Cubes

“Okay, that’s just wrong. Get a room!” Danny exclaimed as he dropped into the empty side of the booth, across from Sara and Tucker—both now blushing madly—in the Nasty Burger.

“You’re one to talk,” Tucker muttered before Sara elbowed him sharply in the robs and sent an amused glance at Danny’s red face, complete to the ears, as his bright blue eyes trailed to the line at the counter and a particular raven-haired girl who was standing there, completely bored, as she waited on their order to come up.

“Shove off, Tuck,” Danny muttered. “At least I don’t get caught out every time I kiss a girl.”

“Just once,” Sara chirped, not above needling Danny herself as Tucker nursed his bruised ribs.

Danny leveled a heavy glare at Sara before his eyes drifted to Sam again, and this time it was Tucker elbowing Sara in the side, albeit much more gently, and with a knowing look on his face. To her credit she only raised an eyebrow as Sam slid into the booth across from them and slid a tray in front of Danny, saving out a strawberry milkshake for herself.

“I need to bleach my eyes,” Danny muttered to her and she patted his arm sympathetically.

“I’m sure everyone here needs to,” she said with a wicked smile at Tucker, who could only shake his head as he tried to stop the heat that was flooding his face.

“What is this, gang up on Tucker day?”

Sam shrugged. “You spent years mocking me and Danny. Turnabout’s fair play.” Then she turned to Sara who was just as red, but kept any of the barbed comments she was thinking from popping out. “So how’s it feel to be a senior on your last spring break?”

“It’s not fair!” Tucker wailed as he collapsed back against the booth. “Why couldn’t _I_ graduate early?”

Sara could only laugh. She had managed, while most of her erstwhile classmates were wrapped up in the popularity contest or extracurricular activities, she had taken the time to apply herself to her classes and take advantage of Casper High’s barely initiated block scheduled accelerated study courses. She had once termed it as taking an entire year of high school in a single semester.

Not easy, but totally worth it whenever she reminded Tucker that she was going to be a high school graduate the same day as him. The entertainment value was priceless, not to mention how good it looked, combined with her high GPA and status as a staff member for the school paper—the best way to keep Danny Phantom out of it—to colleges on the dozens of applications she had sent out months ago.

“You could have, you’re just as smart as me when you use it,” she said smugly, then sighed. Sometimes it was better to be reassuring, and this was one of them, Sara decided as she slipped an arm around Tucker’s waist and leaned in close to him. “Because you had other concerns, sweetie. Like Team Phantom? That took a lot of your time and effort.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed from across the table, a fry waving through the air as he pointedly said, “I’d probably have been dead more than once without you, Tuck.”

It was more than true, and all of them knew it. Despite Danny’s increasing skill with both his powers and his fighting, he was still a favorite target for almost every ghost that came through the Fenton Portal. Or Vlad’s portal in Wisconsin. It had almost gotten him in trouble too many times for anyone at the table to count, and the most recent one was still fairly vivid in all of their memories.

Especially Danny’s, because that had been a very bad day, against a Technus who looked like he’d actually been trying to get rid of Danny and not just take over the world. Danny had landed a week’s worth of detentions for the massive fight he’d had in one of the hallways with the ghost—he’d wrecked almost everything, even in his human form and without his ghost powers.

Which was why he and Sam had showed up so late to the Nasty Burger today, of all days, the last day of school before the first day of spring break. Or, as everyone liked to term it, spring break’s first half day. On the plus side, though, Dash had left Danny alone since his little display in the hall. Of course, that might have been self-preservation. Danny had managed to rip a water fountain off of the wall with his bare hands and throw it into Technus at nearly forty yards. And it still had heat behind it when it hit.

That in itself had made Danny wonder about Dash’s intelligence. If it had actually taken that much to get him off of his back, he couldn’t see the jock doing anything in life that was worthwhile. It almost made him pity him. Almost, but not quite.

It had been Tucker, that afternoon in the hall, who had stopped Technus dead in his tracks with his trusty PDA. He’d hacked into whatever system Technus had been running (Danny could never keep up with the other boy’s technospeak so the name of the system was lost to him forever, not that he particularly cared) and had uninstalled his upgrades, melting him back into mullet-man and then his original ghostly form that Danny, even as a human, had had no trouble cornering and trapping in a thermos.

Of course, that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt, Danny mused silently as he shifted in his seat. There might not have been actual blood, but there had been actual bruises. Lots of them that were finally beginning to fade into nothingness, and looked that much worse for the sickly yellow-green they currently were. And at that, it almost did look better than the black and purple masses he’d sported the last week and a half underneath his clothes.

“So, what’s everyone doing for spring break?” he finally popped out with, desperate to end the silence that had everyone thinking about ghosts and the potential wrecking of spring break.

“What’s the point?” Sam grumbled as she swirled her straw in her cup. “Ghosts are just going to show up and ruin it all.”

“Not this year,” Danny said with a faint smile. “Not if they can’t get out of the ghost zone.”

“You got your parents to shut it down?” Sara asked curiously, and almost too pleased at the thought.

Danny shook his head. “No, but the last time Jazz was in town we fiddled with one of Dad’s ‘failed experiments’ and made it into a one time use deflector. I’m setting it up inside the Ghost Zone tonight.”

“How long does it last?” Tucker asked, and Danny bit back a laugh at the suddenly glazed look to his best friend’s eyes. Technology was the way to Tucker’s heart, he should have known better than to talk about something he didn’t really understand.

“It’ll last all next week. I should be able to get back before the batteries fail,” he said evenly, wondering who it was going to be to pick up on what he said and start interrogating him.

It was Sam, and she looked up at him in such surprise, almost hurt, that it made his heart pound a little harder in his chest to know that keeping even a single secret from her was such a terrible thing. “What do you mean, get back?”

With a sigh Danny sat back in the booth, one hand raking through his hair and leaving it messier than usual, the other dropping casually beneath the table and then frantically groping for Sam’s hand, holding it tightly when he found it and blue eyes pleading with her not to be upset. “I’m flying out to Chicago on Sunday. Mom and Dad want me to do the college tour thing.”

“Even when you’ve already applied and been accepted to UI-Amity Park? That makes absolutely no sense,” Tucker muttered as he turned resolutely from his two best friends, one who looked miserable, the other who was staring in shock.

“So we’re spending the week together, right?” Sara asked him brightly, apparently trying not to pay any attention to the couple across from them either. Even if they knew about Danny and Sam, and the other two suspected individually that they were known, nothing had been… announced. It wasn’t a formal relationship. In fact, it was still borderline denial to anyone who didn’t know what to look for.

“Naturally,” Tucker said. “I got my acceptance to Caltech on Monday, MIT on Tuesday, Brown and Auburn on Wednesday, and yesterday I even got a yes from Princeton.” He paused and made a face. “They’re the only ones who didn’t give me a full academic scholarship.” Then he muttered something nasty under his breath as he glanced back at Danny and Sam, who both seemed a little more relaxed, but nowhere near as easy as they had been before Danny dropped his bombshell.

“What’re you doing for spring break, Sam?” Sara asked as she tucked herself against Tucker.

She shrugged, looking down at the table uncertainly. Certainly, not since her freshman year had she worried about what her two best friends thought about her family’s money, and Sara didn’t really blink at the idea of Sam being the heiress to a fortune. But what none of them knew yet was that the day she turned eighteen, a bare month away, she would be in control of twenty-five percent of her family’s fortune.

That would make _her_ rich, not her family.

“I’ve got some family stuff to do,” she muttered and looked away, pulling her hand out from Danny’s and folding them neatly on the table as she studiously avoided his patented puppy dog eyes and Tucker and Sara’s curiosity.

“Aw, come on, Sam. What’re you going to do while I’m away?” Danny asked and she looked back at him, even though she’d forbidden herself from doing just that. But still, something in his voice…

“They’re taking me apartment hunting tomorrow,” she finally said quietly. “And next week they’re flying to New York to sign my inheritance over to me on my birthday.”

_Talk about bombshells,_ she thought wryly as she stared at three sets of wide eyes and three gaping mouths.

“Dude, you’re about to be rich,” Tucker finally said, and Sara smacked him on the arm. “Ow,” he complained, rubbing the offending red spot. “Well, it’s true!”

“I thought you were going to leave Amity for college,” Sara said with a raised eyebrow. Unlike Tucker she understood that Sam was uncomfortable with the contemplation of her inheritance, despite how much easier her life would be because of it. “Didn’t you get accepted into NYU and UCLA?”

Sam shrugged. “Face it, I don’t _have_ to go to college. I’m going because I choose to. I figure a Liberal Arts degree from UI-Amity Park will be good enough.” No one missed the tentative glance she shot at the still thunderstruck Danny.

“You’re getting an apartment?” he finally managed, blue eyes locked on her still.

Sam nodded slowly. “I’m planning on moving out the day I turn eighteen.” She made a face. “It’ll be nice not to live with the morning people from hell.”

Danny chuckled a little at that, then asked, “You’re not going to New York with them, then?”

This time Sam shook her head, and she was startled by the distinctly wicked glint in Danny’s eyes as he realized she was going to be alone in her house all week. She bit her lip, then said, “You’re going to be in Chicago, though. What am I supposed to do this week?” She shot an annoyed glance at Sara and Tucker who were currently more wrapped up in each other than anything else, even their PDA’s. “You can’t honestly expect me to hang out with them all week, can you? That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Nope,” he said, his hand sliding back to hers where she had absently dropped it back to her lap. “Cruel and unusual was that pink dress. I like you better in black.” He smiled and whispered softly, “Especially that bikini.”

Sam flushed and coughed a bit, scooting away from Danny as she realized exactly how close they’d been sitting. And then moving back at the hurt in Danny’s expressive eyes. Whatever they were, whatever they weren’t, they _were_ something. Even if it fell under friends with benefits, she was willing to take it. Because he’d told her he loved her. No, that he was _in love with her_. And that made it better, because sooner or later she’d get him to stop running and let her tell him exactly how she felt.

But it wasn’t going to be today, no matter what happened. There were too many people around, Sara and Tucker notwithstanding, and she wasn’t looking forward to her evening either. No, it was going to be spent going through brochures of apartments with her parents before they actually went and picked one out.

Like it was that easy. If she had her way, she’d be laying out part of her inheritance for a townhouse on the other side of the park. She knew all about it; three bedrooms, two full and one half bath, a basement that was ready to be converted for home entertainment, a kitchen to die for. Half die, maybe—Danny was a great cook, she’d been on the receiving end of his culinary attentions for years now. He’d learned in self-defense since his parents couldn’t manage anything that didn’t need to be hunted first, and Jazz… Well, the girl couldn’t boil water without burning it.

But the real attraction of that townhouse was the rooftop deck with the privacy screening. When she’d taken a look at it weeks ago, after her parents had told her they were finalizing her trust, she’d thought of all of the things she could do up there. With Danny Fenton _or_ Danny Phantom. Either or, she didn’t really care. They were both Danny to her.

They were both _her_ Danny.

She’d actually made an offer for it, one that was being considered, even though the seller knew she couldn’t even begin to close on it for another month. At least she’d been able to prove her inheritance. With any luck, she’d be able to close on the townhouse immediately after her birthday and never even move into the apartment she was supposed to be renting. She made a mental note to look into subleasing. It was an option so that the apartment wasn’t a total loss, since she didn’t think she could wiggle out of the leasing terms without having to let the complex, whichever one it was, recoup the loss of her breaking the lease.

“Earth to Sam, come in, Sam,” Danny chanted as he waved a hand in front of her face, an amused smile on his. She blinked several times and smiled faintly. “Thinking hard or hardly thinking?”

Sometimes it hit Sam rather hard between the eyes that Danny must not like living very much, because there were times when he made her seriously consider sending him full ghost. She restrained herself, only whacking him smartly in the shoulder with a fisted hand.

“Hey!” he yelped indignantly.

She only glared at Danny, then tossed another one at Sara and Tucker where they snuggled across the table. “You two can quit being so damned smug. It wasn’t funny.”

“Uh, right. Not funny,” Tucker said quickly, then snagged Sara’s hand and dragged her out of the booth. “I do believe it’s time for us to go. Dinner and all, you know,” and he tugged her to the door calling back, Danny, I’ll see you before you leave!”

“Coward,” Danny muttered as he smirked at Sam. “So did you do that on purpose?” he asked as he moved close enough to feel the heat of her body.

She only shrugged. “Does it matter?”

He shook his head. “Come with me?” he asked pleadingly. “I want to spend some time with you. Just you.” His hand was warm around hers and she smiled, nodded, slid out of the booth with him close behind, oblivious to anyone else in the Nasty Burger.

There was a pause as they slipped into the alley behind the Nasty Burger where Sam looked at him questioningly and he smiled at her, then shifted to Phantom quickly and pulled her against him before lifting them into the air, leaving the town of Amity Park far below them. She sighed as she looked down on the town of her birth, surprised that it was still so small compared to so many of the other places she’d been to. Lights flashed up and she wrapped her arms around Danny and laid her head against his shoulder.

“I missed this the last couple of weeks,” Danny whispered into her hair, and she shivered as his cool breath slipped through it and brushed the nape of her neck. “I haven’t had the chance to do this since before Technus showed up.”

“I thought we’d get to spend some time together over spring break,” she said softly, careful that he couldn’t see her face. She felt like she was going to cry, something that was almost completely alien to her, and it only cemented even more firmly in her mind how much she cared about Danny.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” he whispered and pulled her back from his shoulder so that he could look at her, Sam tried turning away, furious that even now, flying hundreds of feet above Amity Park, she still couldn’t keep her halfa from knowing when something was wrong. But he wouldn’t let her. “Sam,” he started, and she shook her head.

“I know it’s not your fault, Danny,” she finally said. “I just wish—”  
“Don’t wish,” he said sharply, looking around frantically. “Never wish; remember what happened last time you wished?”

“Sorry,” she said softly, and closed her eyes. Nothing was going right. First Danny was going to Chicago for almost the entire break, and now she’d managed to upset him when they only had a few days before he left…

“No, I’m sorry,” he said quietly as he pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth, then another to her cheek as he lifted them higher, his arms squeezing around her a little, firmly, letting her know that he was there, that he wanted to be there, wanted to be with her.

She closed her eyes again as she felt him begin to fly lower, knowing they were coming back to earth as the air warmed around him, no matter the chill his ghost form always gave off. She sighed. Over already, he was taking her home. The faint tingle that passed through her told Sam that they’d gone through a wall, the familiar sensation of intangibility fading as he set her down on her carpet, but didn’t let go.

“Sam,” he started as she continued to lean into him. She stopped him with a well-timed kiss that cut anything he’d been about to say in a startled whoosh of air and smiled at the pleasantly heady sensation of warmth as he returned to human and wrapped living arms around her, pulling her close.

The noises that Sam made when Danny kissed her drove him wild. There was no question about it, half the time when he had the chance to touch her, to kiss her, he thought that he’d go insane, snap, and take her wherever they were—the back of the auditorium at school, on the stairs at his house, underneath a tree in the park. There were enough places, most of them painfully public, that it made his head spin as her hands slid underneath his shirt and up his sides.

He shivered a little, the unexpected tickling sensation making him squirm, but he submitted willingly as Sam walked him back to her bed, going down with him, on top of him as his legs hit the foot of her bed and his knees buckled and he fell back. Danny groaned as she shifted against him smiling wickedly before his fingers tightened at her waist and he pulled her back down to him, lips dancing over hers as Sam buried her fingers in his hair.

He wished that they could stay like this forever, forget about the world, forget about the ghosts, forget about how spring break was wrecked beyond recognition. Just let everything go until it was him, and her, and the way she felt against him, touching him, kissing him. Making the pleasured little whimpers he was so fond of and god, he loved her.

“Danny,” she sighed as he carefully, gently, rolled her over so that he was above her, her legs parted so that he could lie between them as he dropped a kiss to her forehead, her cheek, before reclaiming her mouth with his own.

And then the creak of footsteps beyond her closed bedroom door, the steady click of heels against the hall, Sam’s mother calling, “Sammy, are you home?” Danny scrambled off of Sam, eyes wide and panicked as the knob of her door began turning. With a desperate, apologetic look, Danny winked out of sight before Sam’s door managed to swing open to reveal her mother, pink and coiffed as she was every day.

It took Sam a moment and several heated flushes to realize that she was lying on her bed looking thoroughly debauched. Or freshly awake, she thought shrewdly and ran a hand through her hair with a fake yawn. “I was, uh, taking a nap before dinner.”

“Some nap,” she heard very close to her ear, very quiet, and bit back the biting comment she would have loved to toss at Danny right then. She couldn’t suppress the shiver when she felt him go ghost right next to her, icy air washing over her and she covered it up by trying to stretch, and then forcing herself not to writhe as fingers scraped over her bare stomach, low enough to make her want to moan with desire, boot her mother out, and have Danny right then and there.

“I love you, Sam,” he whispered into her ear and then he was gone, cold fading, fingers not touching, and his presence suddenly absent.

The third time he had said it, and it had to be while he was invisible and she was getting lectured by her mother on how to choose an apartment. He had timing, did her halfa. A smile slipped across Sam’s face as she tuned her mother out easily with years of practice. He had timing, and he loved her.

She felt like she was flying.

 

Monday morning dawned and found Amity Park’s resident halfa bleary eyed in Chicago, its resident goth buried under a mountain of blankets and oblivious to the fact that sun had indeed risen again, and the resident technogeek and his girlfriend lounging in the shade of a tree in the park. It was early enough that the sun hadn’t burned away the fog that swept in overnight from Lake Michigan leaving the park cloaked and cool instead of sending the two teens running for the nearest air-conditioned building.

“So have you decided where you’re going to go to college?” Sara asked as fog misted around them, the sun slowly burning its way through to beat down on them.

Tucker shrugged as he dropped back on the grass, letting his head pillow against Sara’s legs so that he could look up at her. “I hadn’t really thought about it, you know?” She arched one eyebrow delicately and Tucker chuckled. “Okay, I thought about it. I just don’t want to. It’s going to change everything.”

Sara smiled and stroked a cool hand across Tucker’s forehead. “Life is about change, Tucker.”

“I know,” he muttered. “I just don’t want _this_ to change.”

Sara smiled softly and pressed a kiss to Tucker’s forehead before straightening with a smile. “You haven’t asked where _I_ applied. Or where I got accepted.”

Tucker glanced away with a sigh. “I know. I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I didn’t get in to Caltech,” Sara started, turning his face to hers when he only groaned in disappointment at that announcement, “Because I never applied there. I’m in at MIT, Brown and Auburn,” she continued softly. “I just didn’t know which one to pick, because I thought that maybe we could pick the same school and go together…”

Tucker’s eyes flew to Sara’s, and he smiled widely as he scrambled up to his knees and wrapped her in a tight hug, kissing her senseless as he grinned. “You want to go to the same school? Really, with me?”

Sara giggled. “We do have a history, Tucker. Two and a half years.” Her smile changed a little, and Tucker’s heart warmed at it. “I kind of hoped we had a future together.”

“Oh, Sara,” Tucker whispered as he pulled her into a much more gentle, though no less enthusiastic kiss. “You have no idea.”

Because Tucker Foley certainly wasn’t going to confess that before his best friend flew to Chicago, he’d helped Tucker pick out an engagement ring. A flawless diamond that was just shy of a full carat and set in white gold, his concession to Sara’s abiding dislike of yellow gold. He would have preferred to get it set in platinum but some things just weren’t meant to be. Especially at those prices.

He could always have the stone reset into platinum after he made it big in the technology world. Except that he was rather fond of the way the diamond looked against the silvery gold. But he’d rather see what it looked like on her hand.

As far as Tucker was concerned, really, the only downside to the whole ‘save the big question until after graduation’ plan was that he couldn’t tell her the funny looks on Danny’s face as he looked over engagement rings himself. Or how much he’d resembled a lobster when Tucker had asked him which one Sam would like, and Danny had absently replied, “She’s not into engagement rings.”

Come to think of it, Danny never had come up with a plausible reason for knowing that beyond wanting to buy Sam one himself…

“So,” Tucker finally said when he sat back from Sara, leaving her with a dreamy half smile. “How do you feel about Massachusetts in the fall?”

She only smiled at him, bright and beautiful. “I think it’s brilliant.”

The subject of Danny and Sam didn’t come up until the sun was already beginning to set and Tucker and Sara were wandering around the pier, one playing games, the other playing with his PDA.

“Do you think they’re ever going to admit it?” Sara asked as she chucked another softball at the last bottle remaining at the other end of the game stand. The bottle fell and she turned to Tucker expectantly as he shrugged at her, nose still stuck in his PDA.

“Admit what? That they’re interested in each other?” he asked as Sara yanked the PDA from his hands and tucked it into her backpack. “If they haven’t yet, I don’t think they’re going to without serious pushing.”

“Tucker, please,” Sara muttered as she accepted the purple bear she’d won and dragged Tucker away from the games and back toward a slightly quieter section of the pier where they could just watch the sun as it sank beyond the horizon. “Do you think they’re going to admit that they’re involved?”

Tucker very nearly choked on a laugh. “Involved? Sara, honey, they haven’t even gone on a date.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t take dates,” was all she said.

“You’re right,” he said brightly. “I can still trick them into going to prom together!” Sara’s surprised look sent Tucker into gales of laughter. “There’re new books open, Sara. But Mr. Lancer declined to lay one out with me.”

“He’s already won once. I’m sure his full body electrolysis was well worth it,” she shot back sarcastically. Then her annoyance at not knowing about Tucker’s newest gambling venture drifted away as curiosity replaced it. “What’s it up to?”

He chuckled. “We’re already back up to two thousand.”

“That much?” the shock evident in her voice.

“What can I say? Danny and Sam are the highest profile couple at Casper simply because they aren’t one.”

“True. Put me in, I have a hundred that says they elope right after graduation.” Sara smiled knowingly, recalling the airport scene from the night before.

It had been ridiculously and agonizingly sweet, and Sara was relatively sure the entire family was expecting for Danny to kiss Sam. He hadn’t, but she was fairly sure that he wanted to. He’d had hugs for everyone, especially his mom and dad who’d let him head to the campus tour on his own. With his sister already away at college he’d spread the rest of his hugs to Sara and Tucker and… Sam. A hug that had lasted long enough to make everyone wonder.

This was going to be easy money.

 

“So your family left okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam muttered as she juggled phone, soda and remote, succeeding in dropping the remote but not the drink or phone. “Grandma wasn’t too happy with them, but I fixed that okay.”

In fact, she’d fixed it better than okay. Her birthday was exactly twenty-two days away, she would be eighteen, and would be able to move the paperwork for her new townhouse along rather nicely. And, with the fancy lawyer speak her grandma had danced around the leasing manager and her own parents with… Well, subleasing the apartment would be no problem now.

In fact, after discussions with the seller and the leasing manager, she wasn’t ever going to have to move into the apartment. Nope. Day after her birthday, she could move into her very own place, and start furnishing it. She smiled a little at the thought. She was fairly certain she could use Danny for manual labor. After all, she had a fantastic way of rewarding him.

He chuckled. “Hey, at least you have the rest of the week free, right? I’m stuck overdramatic teenagers. They think it’s a crime if they don’t sleep until noon.”

“Um, Danny. Aren’t you the one who can’t ever wake up until at least ten?” she asked as she settled herself onto her bed, trying not to laugh.

“If you could see me, I’d have my tongue stuck out at you right now. At least I only sleep till ten because I’m up half the night chasing ghosts.”

“True,” she admitted.

“So,” he said with a smile in his voice. “What are you wearing?”

“Why Mr. Fenton,” she drawled as she glanced down at the simple silk shirt she was wearing, black of course, and small enough that she’d have really enjoyed Danny being there right then. “I do believe you’re coming on to me.”

There was a long silence that was filled with the unspoken tension between the two. Then finally Danny sighed. “I wish I was there with you, Sam.”

“So do I,” she said back, just as softly.

Another sigh, and then Danny said, “I hate to do this, but I have to go. I miss you, Sam.”

“I miss you, too, Danny. You’ll call me again tomorrow?”

“I will. I promise. Sam?”

“Yeah?” she asked, butterflies fluttering in her stomach as she realized what he was about to say, and wanting desperately to say it back.

“I love you.”

“I—” and she sighed as the dial tone cut her short. “I love you, too, Danny. Even if you’re a coward and are too afraid for me to say it.”

Sam dropped the phone to her nightstand, flicked the television on, and sat back with her soda, fully prepared to spend the rest of her spring break in the dark watching movies and trying desperately not to think about Danny Fenton too much. Because she missed him so much that it hurt.

 

Sam was pulled out of a sound, dream filled sleep by chilly fingers on her cheek. If it hadn’t been for the sudden fear that Danny’s ghost shield around the Fenton portal had failed, she might not have jerked wide awake, all thoughts of her dreams vanishing as she looked around her empty room. Empty. Right. It was freezing.

“Alright, I know you’re there,” she muttered as she yanked a small ectogun from the drawer of her nightstand and aimed it randomly around the room.

She was greeted by a low, lazy chuckle and familiar green eyes blurring into existence at the foot of her bed, followed by a shock of messy white hair and a familiar black and white jumpsuit. He smiled at her, one eyebrow arched as she hastily dropped the ectogun so that it wasn’t aimed at him anymore. “Is that anyway to say hello?”

“You’re in Chicago,” was all Sam could say.

“No. I _was_ in Chicago. Now I’m here with you, where I wanted to be the entire time.” She couldn’t help but smile at that, and Danny grinned widely as he pulled one gloved hand from behind his back as he shifted from Phantom to Fenton in the space between heartbeats.

“That, and I’m sick of being jealous of a bunch of ice cubes,” he said as he dropped an entire bag of ice at the foot of her bed. “Say yes, Sam?” he asked quietly, knowing full well what he was asking permission for.

The startled look had left her eyes, and Sam smiled at him as she kicked at the ice, knocking the bag to the floor. Then she slipped out of her bed, satisfied at the way Danny’s eyes heated at the length of pale leg that wasn’t hidden by the short, flimsy nightshirt she had worn. She moved to him, against him, knowing full well what she was doing as she raised up on her toes and pressed a firm kiss to his mouth, swiping her tongue over his bottom lip before dropping back down.

“Yes,” she said softly, still smiling, and then laid a hand over his mouth to stop him from stopping her. _Not this time, ghost boy._ “Danny, I love you.”

His eyes slipped closed, and for a bare moment Sam wondered if telling him hadn’t been such a good idea. Then he was pressing his forehead to hers, his arms wrapping tightly around her as he breathed out on a shuddering sigh. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to hear you say that.”

“I would have told you sooner if you didn’t keep disappearing on me,” she murmured as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again, this time chastely, reassuringly.

It was different this time, she realized as his fingers trailed down her sides, hot through the silk, firm above its softness. Not like any of the times before when they’d managed to land themselves in compromising positions: This time there would be no interruptions.

She sighed as Danny skimmed his hands back up her sides, this time underneath the shirt, her skin prickling with the chill as silk rose higher until she obediently lifted her arms over her head so that he could slide the shirt off. He hadn’t expected for her to be so willing, the way his eyes darkened from icy blue to a deeper, stormy shade and then flashed brilliant green for a bare moment was enough for Sam to know that he was in as deep as she was. That he wanted her, needed her, and wasn’t planning on stopping for anything.

“You’re beautiful,” Danny murmured as he captured her mouth again, his shirt a little rough against her bare skin and his hands trailing down to her hips, skimming the waist of her simple black panties.

There was a bare moment where she wanted to protest what Danny had said, and then Sam found herself being laid gently back on the bed, her sheets and blanket shoved roughly to the foot of the bed by a very impatient halfa who was currently kissing her neck, sucking at it, his teeth nipping gently as she lay back and just whimpered. Then there was nothing and Sam cracked her eyes open to see Danny standing and tugging his shirt off only to throw it behind him like it was an irritation.

Maybe it was, considering the fact that she was mostly naked and he still had most of his clothes on.

“I kind of thought you’d be a little more… I don’t know. Shy,” he said with a fain grin as he toed his shoes off.

Sam laughed as she sat back up and reached a hand out to snag his jeans at the waist, tugging him close as her fingers flew over the button and zipper, then smoothed them down his hips and tumbled him onto the bed with her. “That’d be just silly,” she whispered as she pushed him back and kissed him thoroughly. “Considering what happened last month behind the bleachers? I really don’t think I need to worry about being shy anymore.”

“Point taken,” he said as he pulled her back down to him, rolling her beneath him and scooting her further onto the bed so that she was back in the center and he was poised next to her, one hand grasping the plastic bag full of ice, and the other poking through the plastic to draw one out. “Do believe I said I was sick of being jealous of a bunch of ice.”

“You did,” she said on a breathy laugh and then a sudden gasp as one chilly piece was run across her stomach. The gasp slid into sigh as Danny’s mouth followed, burning heat tracing behind the cold trail of melting water.

“Thought about doing this that day,” he whispered against her stomach as the ice melted and ran across her pale skin. “Then you kissed me and I forgot how to think.”

He glanced up at her, pleased that her eyes were half lidded as he drew another piece of ice down her side and along her ribcage, tongue and mouth following, soothing chilled flesh and goose bumps as the new piece of ice melted. She’d gone through, what? Maybe half a dozen ice cubes? He was on his second, and he was seriously considering letting his issue with the ice remain so that he could just touch her. Make love to her.

Except for the funny little noise she was making. A low keening moan that was doing things inside him that he rather liked. He wanted her to make that noise more. A lot more. See if she’d let go and scream for him, scream his name. The new piece of ice melted in his fingers as he watched her, and he had to get another, shoving the bag away as he let a few drops of water drip from the ice to the peak of her breast.

It was enthralling, the way the icy liquid made the nipple tighten, and before he could make a conscious decision to quit playing Danny found himself kissing her breast, teasing the nipple between his lips and teeth as Sam’s back arched and her fingers threaded themselves through his hair. And then she moaned. His name, a strangled form of it, and Danny thought he might very well die of happiness to hear her saying it like that.

He moved further over her, finding her other breast with his mouth and giving it the same attention as her hands fisted, pulling at his hair, and then slid down to his shoulders and held tightly. He let his hands drop down, crossing the pale expanse of her stomach, and then hooking into the edges of her panties before tugging and pushing them down her slim legs until they could be kicked to the foot of the bed, a dark spot against the sea of lavender that was her sheets.

And when he slipped a finger inside her Danny decided that it was infinitely better to have her gasping his name rather than screaming it. And from the way her body was quivering beneath his hands and mouth, having her completely speechless, only able to whimper and moan and make inarticulate noises, was even better than that.

Especially since Danny was being very deliberate in what he was doing. He’d known since he’d made the decision to skip out on Chicago and the campus tour what he was coming home to do. And he’d known since his junior year the basics of sex, thanks to a quickly removed but overly enthusiastic sexual education teacher. He’d wondered at the time, because anyone who was as willing to be blunt and honest as that woman had been deserved the benefit of the doubt.

But maybe saying point blank that her students were teenagers and she was expecting them to become slaves to lust before they graduated wasn’t the smartest thing in the world. Even if it was true. But she’d passed out her most important advice before she’d been sacked, and it had stuck with him. Every time he’d watched Sam, every time he’d known that he wanted her, no one else, and he wanted to be her first. Her only.

_A girl’s first time isn’t always the most enjoyable experience. It can be painful, and it’s her lover’s job to make it as wonderful as he can._

Really stuck with him. He knew that this would probably hurt Sam, that she wouldn’t enjoy it all as much as he would. So he was going to do what he could to make it better, to show her that he did care, that he was always going to put her before him. Her needs before his, even when they had the same common goal. She was just going to get to it before him, and Danny rubbed his thumb across her clit as he looked up at her.

She was boneless against the pillows, eyes closed, lips parted, a fine sheen of sweat across her cheeks as she breathed shallowly. She moaned and Danny did it again, watching her face grow slack as she came around his fingers, body shivering as he moved up to kiss her gently. A smile curved her lips as he did, and when she brought a hand up to cup his cheek he turned into it, pressing a kiss to her palm before resting his cheek against hers, reveling in the unsteady beat of her heart, the uneven breathes that she took. The way she sounded, well loved, when she finally said his name.

“Danny,” she whispered, and breathed in a slow breath as he turned dark eyes on her. “I want you.”

He smiled, and she pulled him back to her, kissing him gently, deeply, as her fingers found the waistband of his boxers and pushed. It was an interesting sight, one she wouldn’t willingly have forgone: dark blue and black puddled against her sheets. Something she’d wanted for a long time, and that she thought maybe he knew, because he didn’t move, only let his eyes slip closed as she wrapped warm fingers around him and squeezed.

“Sam.” Her name escaped on a groan and she felt his fingers firm at her wrist, pulling her hand away as his eyes bore into hers. “If you do that, I can’t promise to last. You’re a little too good at that, you know?”

She laughed softly, then pulled him back to her as he started to slide off of the bed and leave her. “Wait, where are you going?”

Even in the darkness she could see the blush that spread across his face. “Condom,” was all he said, a faint, choked whisper as she ran cool fingers across his burning cheeks.

“Danny,” she said and stopped. She smiled and pulled him back to her. “I’ve been on the pill since December.”

“You what?” he exclaimed, surprised. “That far back?”

She nodded. “Better safe than sorry. And I don’t want to feel a piece of rubber. I want to feel you.”

And despite the thoughts whirling in his head, that Sam had been prepared for this for so long, Danny let her draw him back down to her. “You’re too smart, sometimes,” he said as he kissed her forehead.

“I know,” was all she said as he snugged himself between her thighs, trying not to give into the sudden desire to just thrust into her and damn the consequences.

“Are you sure?” he whispered, suddenly hesitant, almost afraid of what she’d say. She nodded and he breathed out a shaky breath. “I don’t want to hurt you, Sam,” he murmured against her throat. She only kissed him, and Danny closed his eyes as he eased himself inside her, iron will keeping him slow and gentle as she accepted him into her body.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she finally said softly, and Danny breathed. Nothing more, just stillness for a long moment.

“Love you, Sam,” he breathed out as he held himself still inside her, blue eyes burning into Sam’s. “Love you so much.”

Then, he moved.

The faint discomfort Danny had seen in Sam’s eyes faded as he did, replaced by a dark pleasure as they slipped half closed. He dipped his mouth to hers again, kissing her as he slid out and back in with deceptively slow thrusts. She was warm, hot, and her body clung to his as he moved, making him gasp out a low groan as he thrust again, and this time her hips rose to meet his as she moved her mouth to his throat, pressing sharp, teasing kisses down it.

She moved against him again and Danny bit back the desire to speed up, to forget the steady pace he was setting. He didn’t, willpower winning once more, and he pulled her hands from behind his neck, pressed them against her mattress as he threaded his fingers through hers and held tight, the muscles along his shoulders and back tensing as he made love to her.

She whimpered as he moved and he paused, thinking he’d hurt her, and she stared up at him through lust ridden eyes. “Don’t stop,” she said hoarsely. _“Please.”_

Oh. It was all his mind could comprehend as he shifted inside her again, and this time he could see what it did to her as her eyes slipped back closed, her head back against the pillow, just like before when he…  _Oh._ And then she moaned, long and low, and everything shifted as he understood.

“Open your eyes, Sam,” he murmured as he kissed her cheek, her lips. “I want to watch you when you come.”

Dark, dark purple flashed open and caught Danny’s, and he breathed out in a slow, shuddering breath as he forced himself to stay gentle, no matter how hard. Sam shifted her hips again, eyes narrowed at his, and Danny groaned, whispered her name. And again, this time Sam leading them through the passionate dance that they danced.

“Sam,” he managed to gasp out, sure that he was going to lose control if she used that wickedly erotic twist again. But then, he realized, she was just as helpless against it as he was. Her eyes had slipped closed again, her breathing hitching as he thrust, her head tossed back baring her long pale neck.

Her entire body writhing, clenching around him, bursting into flame as she gave a long, whimpering cry, climaxing with Danny a bare heartbeat behind her.

He had just enough presence of mind to catch himself before he collapsed on top of her, arms trembling as he eased himself down to lay next to her, to gather her to him as the sun rose somewhere beyond her curtains, bathing them in pale rose light. Danny laid his face alongside hers, gently smoothed her dark hair back from her face as she held to him, arms warm and tight around him.

“I do love you, Sam,” he whispered as he kissed her softly, chastely.

She only burrowed her face against his shoulder, kissing it before laying her head against it quietly. Then, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

It should have startled him, he thought, because he was thinking along them same comforting idea. But instead it only made him sigh and breathe in the scent of her shampoo, lavender and vanilla and the underlying scent that was all her. “We can,” he finally said.

Sam sighed and shifted against him, sitting up and grabbed at the massed sheet at the foot of her bed, snagging it and tugging it up over the both of them. “Be realistic, Danny. My parents will be back before Friday, and you have to go back to Chicago.”

“Just to catch my plane home,” he interrupted. “We both know I’m staying here in Amity Park.”

She smiled faintly at that. “Yes, but my family will still be back at the end of the week. It’s already Wednesday.” She chuckled. “Besides, I don’t really think my parents are going to be very accepting of this.”

He pulled her closer. “So you’re saying that they won’t like the thought of me thoroughly debauching their only daughter?” he asked with a low laugh as fingers skimmed down her sides.

She giggled and pushed his hands away, then pulled him close for a mind-blowing kiss. “They get back on Friday. We have until then at least,” she said softly against his mouth.

He raised an eyebrow. “Why should that matter? Just because they get back?” he was serious, too serious, and she frowned.

“It doesn’t, not really. I love you, Danny. I do. But…” There were no words to say it. They both knew there was too much risk at being caught by her parents. He’d already had one restraining order, and if the Manson’s found Danny Fenton in their daughter’s bed he’d be brought up on statutory rape charges so quickly he couldn’t blink. The pain of turning eighteen before her.

“We could get married,” he whispered into the sudden silence.

And Sam stared at him, utterly, utterly surprised. It almost hurt him that she would be so surprised he suggested spending the rest of his life with her, but only until the surprise faded into a thoughtful, considering stare. “Are you offering?” she finally asked.

He kissed her quickly, relieved that she hadn’t just socked him, gratified that she was actually taking it seriously. “Are you saying yes?”

“I don’t wear white, Danny. For anything.”

“Sam,” he grated out. “Are you saying yes?”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing a firm kiss to his lips. “What do you think?”

**Author's Note:**

> UI-Amity Park is my version of UC-Sunnydale from Buffy. I’ve placed Amity Park in Illinois, between Chicago and Wisconsin, right off of Lake Michigan. Thusly, the University of Illinois-Amity Park campus.


End file.
